(1) Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an electrophoretic display.
(2) Description of the Related Art
An electrophoretic displays (“EPD”) is a kind of flat panel display that is used in electronic books, and various types of electrophoretic displays (“EPDs”) have been proposed.
Among those, an electronic ink type electrophoretic display includes two display panels having electric field generation electrodes, and electronic ink formed between the two display panels. The electronic ink contains both a plurality of black or white positive charged particles, and a plurality of black or white negative charged particles, in a microcapsule. The electrophoretic display displays images by moving the white and black charged particles from the electronic ink to electrodes having opposite polarities, respectively, and reflecting external light, by using potential difference at ends of the electrodes due to voltage applied to opposite electrodes.
The electrophoretic display has high reflectivity and contrast ratio and substantially does not depends on the viewing angle, unlike the liquid crystal display (“LCD”), such that the electrophoretic display is able to display images with comfortable feeling for the user, such as if the user was viewing the images in a non-electronic format, like paper. Further, the electrophoretic display consumes less power because it is able to maintain the images even if voltage is not continuously applied, due to the bi-stable characteristics of white and black.
Unlike a liquid crystal display, in order to represent a texture similar to paper, the electrophoretic display has an edge area in which white or black is displayed, and which is a peripheral part of a display area in which actual images are displayed.
In a conventional electrophoretic display, the edge area has edge pixel electrodes continuously formed without being divided in pixel units, which causes a problem in which the edge area is displayed brighter than the display area when a white gray level is displayed.